Fractured Pieces, New Mirror

Note: Changing POV temporarily here, since I needed someone in the group who would still technically be on the outside of the relationship.

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Enrico was staring out the front hall window again. Wiping his hands on a dishcloth, he pushed his glasses back up his nose and went to put a hand on the doll's shoulder. "Don't fret so much, my young friend. Father Anderson has been busy lately, but he'll be back soon."

There was a small nod, but the doll otherwise didn't move, and he sighed. He still didn't know all the details of what had happened during the last incident with Hellsing's undead enforcer, but he knew enough to guess at what was going on. And to know that, in it's own twisted way, history was beginning to repeat itself.

"Father Renaldo?"

He glanced up from his wandering thoughts to find Enrico watching him with those strangely bright eyes. "Yes?"

"Will he come visit tomorrow?"

It took a little more effort than he would have thought, but he managed to lie with a smile. "It could happen." Putting his hands on the doll's shoulders, he guided it away from the window. "If you keep yourself busy and try not to think about it, tomorrow will probably come faster. How about helping me with the dishes for now? That's a good way to use up some time."

"Okay," Enrico murmured, following him into the kitchen, but he couldn't help noticing that the doll seemed a little more... empty than before.

***************

It was becoming routine. Day in and day out, the doll only ever asked one question, and whether it was asked of him or one of the girls, they always responded with the same answer. But "tomorrow" never seemed to come, and they all knew why. Even Enrico seemed to be catching on, although they never noticed. So it was a surprise when, instead of the usual, one day the question was "He's never coming back, is he?"

Caught off guard by the sudden shift, he tried to think of a good way to answer that. But the pause seemed to be answer enough for the doll, who quietly curled up in a miserable ball on the windowseat. "It's because of the other me, isn't it?"

The 'other Enrico'. The memories of the doll's predecessor that Alucard had woken up the last time they'd encountered each other. He had found it rather strange that there had been no meshing at all. The doll, possibly due to the small child nature it had been created with, simply thought of his previous life as being a whole different person who lived inside him. Other than a slightly clearer mind and a more desperate desire to please the person it considered its owner, nothing had changed, as far as he could see.

But Alex hadn't seen it that way.

Honestly, sometimes he didn't have the slightest clue how the other man's mind worked. The only logical conclusion was that he had assumed that with memories restored, the doll would somehow... "re-grow" the original's personality or some such. One visit would be enough to know that hadn't happened, but try as he might, he couldn't even get Alex to agree to that much.

The doll was still watching him, waiting for an answer, and he sighed. "I don't know why he doesn't come."

Enrico's eyes dulled a little further.

***************

He had heard that Hellsing and her pet were in the city for discussions with the Vatican, so when he couldn't find Enrico anywhere in the house, he knew where to look. Balancing the umbrella against his shoulder, he leaned against the wall he'd found the doll curled up on. "Why did you leave the house?"

"I wanted to talk to my creator," the doll mumbled quietly, not looking up even when he shifted the umbrella so it wasn't getting wet anymore.

"Why would you want to do that?" he asked, a little more gently, although he already knew the most likely answer.

"I wanted to know if he would un-make me."

The answer to the question was obvious by the mere fact that Enrico was still sitting here talking to him, but he couldn't keep himself from asking anyway. "What did he say to you?"

The doll curled himself up a little tighter and it wiped its eyes with the back of its hand. "He said that I was a failure because I hadn't lived up to my purpose for creation, making my owner happy. If I wanted to die, then death was a reward, and failures don't deserve rewards."

He put an arm around shaking shoulders and gave the doll a reassuring squeeze. "Well... maybe you shouldn't focus on dying, then. Maybe it would be better to focus on improving yourself, so that you can live up to your purpose."

For the first time he could remember, the doll actually brightened a little. "That's a really good idea." The hug was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. "Thanks, Father!"

***************

A conference in Berlin had forced him out of the country for a few weeks before he could find out what the doll had in mind, and while the girls had called regularly to give him updates on their charge's condition, Heinkel's cryptic warning that Enrico had been "going a bit strange" lately didn't prepare him for this.

"What are you doing?!"

The doll didn't fight him at all as he pulled the kitchen knife out of its hand, simply staring up at him with a bland sort of smile as he went to toss it in the sink and turn the water on. "I'm trying to fix me."

He swallowed and crouched down, trying not to look as the bloody open wound began to close itself up. Combat wounds were one thing, a person blithely digging around in their own body and not noticing the injuries or the pain was another. "What do you mean 'fix you'?"

"Well, he hates me because of the other me, right? So if I find the other me and get rid of it, then he'll want me again, won't he?"

He felt nauseous. On one hand, going by what seemed to be the doll's train of thought, that did make sense. On the other...

"Enrico, the other you isn't something physical. You're not going to find it by hurting yourself like this."

It was only when the doll's eyes widened and blood tears welled up that he realized he'd just given the worst possible answer. "Then... Then I can't be fixed? He'll hate me forever?"

"No!" He quickly reached out, gathering Enrico close and rubbing his back soothingly, ignoring the blood being smeared on his clothes. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant we'll just have to find another way to fix you, alright? That's all."

It was a false hope, most likely, but it was hope nonetheless, and the doll nodded as it clung to him and cried.

***************

Arriving back from Milan after another conference -that had gone on entirely too long, in his opinion- he was surprised to find the girls just arriving at the house. That explained why he hadn't gotten any phone calls, but-

"Where have you two been?"

Heinkel blinked at him. "We got sent on an assignment to Alexandria two weeks ago, and just got back around five. Where have you been?"

"Territorial divisions conference in Milan."

"But then..."

A sense of dread was beginning to well up. Between their respective schedules, that meant the doll had been completely left alone and to its own devices for at least two weeks, maybe a few days more. Considering how its sanity had been degenerating since Alex had more or less abandoned it... this was bad.

Yumie moved out of the way as he pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, all now wary of what might be inside. But whatever scenarios had been going through their minds as he popped the catch all vanished in the wake of the scene that greeted them when the door swung open.

"Oh, God."